


I run and run

by hotrodngold (Krystalicekitsu)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Challenge Response, Community: stargateland, Drabble Collection, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Multi, Schmoop, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-26
Updated: 2011-07-26
Packaged: 2017-10-22 13:50:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/238721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krystalicekitsu/pseuds/hotrodngold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And Rodney knows, you see, that these things don’t last.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I run and run

**Author's Note:**

> for [](http://stargateland.livejournal.com/profile)[**stargateland**](http://stargateland.livejournal.com/)’s [SEQUENCE THIS](http://stargateland.livejournal.com/110000.html) challenge. Challenge was ‘ _Create 10 drabbles or 10 icons (or a mixture of the two) that go in a sequence. Drabbles need to be at least 50 words each, but as long as all ten reach at least 500 words, you can have some slightly shorter._ ’ The sequence was the series of pairings and that the first words of the drabbles are the first lyrics to Mumford and Sons’ [After the Storm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR28eazAM5E).

And Rodney knows, you see, that these things don’t last. That beautiful women with smiles that taste like sunshine and eyes that sparkle with laughter and kindness don’t want bitter, conceded scientists with a god complex and not enough wits in their head to figure that blowing up a solar system is a bad idea but. But he can’t get her out of his head and maybe they’ll crash and burn and explode (like his fiery, explosive supernova) but the lights will be bright and furious and beautiful. Until they burn him alive.

~*~

After everything, all the explosions and the bitter deaths and the loss, Dr. Keller isn’t sure that any of this is worth it. Oh, she knows what a huge chance this is, an amazing experience. But she’s a firm believer in weighing the risks against gains (she has to be, has to measure the potential gains against risk to the patient, to her career, to her _sanity_ ), and this whole venture might be a little too high-risk. But then she’ll turn the corner and he’ll be there, a gentle, soft smile that no one else gets to see and she thinks that, yes, maybe this is all worth it. For the random chance that led her predecessor to saving a six-foot runner and the not so random chance that let him stay, waiting, until she came along.

~*~

The things that Ronnon misses the most aren’t things that can be easily categorized. He doesn’t miss the food (though the food on Atlantis is crap for the first few months, until they get trading finalized with a few separate suppliers), and he doesn’t really miss the drills (though the ones with the marines are grueling enough to compare). It’s the little things. Or, not even really little. The things you don’t quite notice until you’re not running for your life and you have enough time to pause and go ‘oh, huh’. Things like the light in the morning. The way it glimmers off golden hair. And maybe the Earthers are weird but the no-fraternizing with a superior officer thing was the same on Sateda. Doesn’t make him hate the reg any less. Doesn’t stop him from lying awake at night and pining for that small bit of familiarity and wordless comfort, for that small, quick flash of a sardonic smile. But at least he understands it.

~*~

Storm warnings always reminded Sam of a little kid rushing up to an adult and proudly proclaiming news that everybody knew, just because the child wanted to prove that yes, they saw it too. Her newly acquired XO reminded her of that little kid, always wanting to be the one with the news, to show everyone that he could help and be useful. (She sometimes thinks he reminds her of Jack, but O’Neill was more brash, more brazen, not afraid of what anyone thought, even though the playfulness and the boyish glee at causing trouble were obviously grown from the same source.) He’s hard to resist, hard to say no to, and sometimes that’s all (she’s convinced) that stops him from not coming back, that small, two-letter word. But no matter how she dresses it up in reasons and rules and regs, she wants nothing more than to shout ‘YES YES YES’ at him. She knows it’s unethical and a very bad idea (and unspoken feelings like this have already gotten her in trouble once before) but she can’t help it. She doesn’t want to, and can’t seem to, stop herself from grinning at him when he does that playful bounce. Though she knows he’s like the Colonel ( _General_ , though Jack will always be the Colonel to her, young and brash and confident), hiding pain and old wounds behind race cars and sneaky smirks, she still wants to bundle him up and protect him from the world that he’s protecting.

~*~

“I don’t think this is quite right,” John says, fingers running along and smudging the chalk equations lining the walls. But it is, he knows it is, can see the math lining up perfectly in his head, little soldiers of exponents and ratios and inverse functions in his head, parallel and beautiful equations of simplicity. Even as his scientist (his, _his_ ) blusters and rants about finger smudges and immoral MIT graduates and watches critically as John ‘corrects’ the smudged out math (exactly the same as he took it off, line by line, mark by mark), John is watching and waiting. Waiting because he knows about the building red giant between them, knows about the supernova about to hit Atlantis, whether or not Rodney’s noticed that’s what the thing between him and Keller is going to become, whether or not Rodney cares, because even if the burn out is only one burst (violent a nova exploding in brilliant fire and heat and destruction) instead of a pulsar that fries you with X-rays before compressing and sucking down everything good and light inside it’s event horizon (and John is always within Rodney’s event horizon, will always _be_ within Rodney’s event horizon), John is going to be there, caught in the backlash, already drawn towards Rodney as sure as gravity. So he watches and waits, patient and careful and slow and maybe this time he’ll impact. A meteorite rather than a comet passing every 500 years.

~*~

Run and run and this is not what he signed up for. But John is ahead of him, grinning over his shoulder and Rodney smirks playfully ( _pain_ fully) and puts on a burst of speed because John promised and when John promises things, he keeps his word. So Rodney isn’t stopping, isn’t asking for a break because John _promised_ and Rodney has a whole list of things he’s going to ask for and, really, John should’ve known what he was getting himself into, but maybe he does because the look in his eyes goes from playful to smoldering and Rodney is breathless (more, anyway) because god if good things don’t happen with that look. Things that make it painful to sit down for days and leave him incoherent for hours and passed out for hours more. The things that could make anyone break down and weep. But Rodney has to win first, doesn’t he? Looks like he’s going to finally get to use those extra practice sessions.

~*~

And, ok, maybe this might not be the best idea in the world, might be one of the biggest mistakes of his career, but for once she looks at John when his eyes plead ‘yes?’ and hesitates, resists a moment, pauses and then is pressed against him, lips saying ‘yes’. And Sam is kissing him. Kissing and then he’s kissing back, hungry and yearning and she cups his jaw, soft and protective and he wants to keep her safe and his and _here_ , if only for a night and she’s, finally, not saying ‘no’ and neither is he. They’re neither of them saying no and John can’t find the reason that they should either have said no before even though he knows it’s there, somewhere. And then she leans back, says ‘Colonel?’ and he knows, and it’s not a ‘no’, just a ‘maybe?’ but she’s not sure either. Not sure if this is right for either of them, if this isn’t going to ruin him and end everything but he can’t care, doesn’t want to because her eyes are soft and waiting and this is it. These are the moments that make up the other moments in the world. These are the moments that make the world worth saving.

~*~

Run one way and he runs the other, is all Sam can think, but this game, this training of Ronnon’s started out with a long list of rules and Sam had memorized them with a disbelieving eyebrow raised against Ronnon’s daring grin, the challenge clear in his eyes and hands on her hips and Sam has never backed down from a dare. But maybe this is a little out of her league, because he’s not playing fair, surely. Surely water balloons and noose traps were a little juvenile but she’s going to catch him because he’s going to lose. But she doesn’t and he doesn’t and the upside down kiss might make her laugh (bad movies from a theater just off-base that smelled of too much popcorn and stupid scenes in the rain) but he cuts her down and then takes her back to camp where there’s hot cocoa and the Satedan version of s’mores and one set of blankets that used to be two.

~*~

As she lifts him up, one arm a brace, the other pulling against a ledge of broken grinders and twisted ship, Ronnon can’t believe how lucky he was. Lucky that she wasn’t there (here) when everything went to shit, that she wasn’t anywhere close. That he didn’t have to worry that one of the unresponsive bodies was Jennifer’s and when it hits him with full implications he stumbles, goes down, deaf to her concerned questions, deaf to anything but the fact that she’s _here_ , and _real_ and _safe_. That she’s his and he’s hers and that Atlantis is far stronger than Sateda was and he will never, _never_ have to worry about her like that, that she will always come rescue _him_ and he can rest, can relax. He can let go because she’s not letting go, whispering ‘I’ve got you, Ronnon. I’ve got you.’

~*~

The thing is, Jennifer knows that Rodney burns through things like a plasma torch through butter, but she’s never had to worry about it, never needed to care. Rodney can verbally lacerate fifteen doctorates before lunch, can bring them to their knees and have them crying then go to lunch with her as if nothing happened at all. At first she tried to censor him, tried to make him change to be more polite and considerate, but that’s not who she fell for, that’s not the kind of person he was when she met and she liked. She tried to change him, to make him ‘better’ but then he wasn’t Rodney, wasn’t who she loved (and she can admit that she loves him, that, maybe, he loves her even as she knows that he really, also, loves John), wasn’t who made her grin and smile and smirk. A polite, calm Rodney isn’t Rodney and she knows she’s right when she walks in on a rant, a sputtering and furious rant and John’s there, too.

Smiling.


End file.
